Been right out straight between call and general fracture business for this time of year. Unpredictable interruptions to my schedule are annoying. Reminds me of being a resident all over again. The good news? In roughly 36 hours I’m on vacation for a week. My favorite part is when I set the message on my work email to “Out of office. If you need immediate assistance please call 207 97x-xxxx for the on call provider.”

As I understand it, the Psalmist for 111 was very likely David himself, and “rock” here can be taken as either “that firm thing upon which I stand” or “that which I hurl at my enemies that I might have victory, like when I pwned that Goliath guy”. It is likely that the Psalmist fully intended both readings, and we have pre-Christian commentary that reads it both ways.

Well, we spent many a day and night at Disney World. Had annual passes when we lived in Florida when the kids were younger. Had a blast. Great family memories just staying at the hotels (not necessarily Disney) with the fun pools and slides and whatnot.

My 24 year old was visiting in January and we asked what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, “Go to Disney!” (And oddly, she wanted the Magic Kingdom although it’s not one of the more adult Disney Parks, we have lots of memories there) so we went up (hour and a half drive) and had a marvelous time. Laughed the whole way through. They have FAST PASS now so you get a designated time frame for the popular rides and fit in the less popular rides, lunch and hitting the ice cream shop in-between.

I’m going to a place with thousands of people who have never been here before and they desperately want to see everything. They may not speak my language and do not value deodorant like we Americans do. I’m going to have fun in the lines goofing with the people I came with because lots of time will be spent in lines. I will budget and research how much, lunch, dinner and snacks will cost because they cost a shit ton and I don’t want to be bitching the whole time my kids are just excited to see the gals from Frozen signing autographs. I will take breaks and just marvel at the engineering systems necessary to run this place.

But I’m blessed, it is actually IMPOSSIBLE for my family to be together and do ANYTHING and not have fun.

They do their Wine festival at Epcot then – which can get crowds, but it’s a month long . When we went it wasn’t bad at all. We we get to the parks and go through many rides before we even had to wait in any lines.

Drinking around the world. Hiccup. Sometimes we start in Mexico and finish in Canada. Sometimes we start in Germany. Sometimes we start in Canada, walk to the Boardwalk, have a few drinks at the ESPN zone, go back to EPCOT and resume drinking in France. We go to FL between Oct-Feb.

A Scottish couple took in an 18-year-old girl as a lodger. She asked if she could have a bath, but the woman of the house told her they didn’t have a bath, although if she wanted to, she could use a tin bath in front of the fire.

“Monday’s the best night, when ma husband goes oot to the darts,” she said.

The girl agreed to have a bath the following Monday.

After her husband had gone to the pub for his darts match, the woman filled the bath and watched the girl get undressed. She was surprised to see that the lass didn’t have any pubic hair. She mentioned this to her husband when he came home. He didn’t believe her, so she said “next Monday, when ye go oot to the darts, leave a wee bit early and wait in the back garden.
I’ll leave a gap in the curtains so ye can see for yourself.”

So the following Monday, while the girl again got undressed, the wife asked: “Dae you shave?”

“No,”replied the girl. “I’ve just never grown any hair down there. Do you have hair?”

“Oh, aye,” said the woman, and she pulled up her nightdress and showed the girl that she was really generously endowed in the hair department…
very generously indeed.

The girl finished her bath and went to bed.

Later that night, when the husband came in, the wife asked him,”Did ye see it?”

“Aye,” he said, “but why the hell did ye have to show her yours.”

“Why ever are ye worried aboot that?” she said. “Ye’ve seen it often enough before.”

Two or three nights ago they were right next door, singing up a storm. I said something to Scott and he went outside. He banged on the grill and they shut up. Then he walked out toward them. Apparently they split.

I’d read that Newfies like to always be at your feet, and they weren’t joking.
He’ll follow me around the kitchen to plot right behind as I go from the sink to the stove … it’s funny.
It’s not “needy” – he’s not insecure. It’s just … he feels that’s were he belongs.
He has ZERO separation anxiety. But if you’re home- he’s right there.

Yep. I had a Newf from the pound when I was in High school. He died before I went into the Army. They have heart problems but are just so loyal. Bear (the dogs name), would follow me around the house as I did chores too.Walking him in neighborhood was funny, the little kids thought he was just so cute, but the ones who were older (say 1st grade) would be scared of him.

I used to do this a lot, but haven’t in a while, but I think it is time for a rant.
Now Florida has been taking it in the balls lately by the Universe, with the shooting, a Milo Yannanopolis press conference and then a toddler getting killed by an alligator at a Disney property. The last is one I want to talk about.
My opinion is less about the family and more about the society. I can remember talking with my grandfather about medicine. (He was pretty obsessed with it. He lost his favorite sister when she was 12 because a compound fracture got infected. He was the only boy and youngest and she was the oldest who doted on him.) He told me about having swimming pools, ponds and lakes closed during the summer because of polio outbreaks. When it happened, signs would go up, “No Swimming”, and everyone knew there was a good reason not to swim there.
But then, as we grew in population, we stopped treating those signs as useful warnings because so often they are just covering bases for lawyer and court mandated latifundia. Look at a pool in a public area and read all the warning signs. ‘Don’t dive headfirst into the Jacuzzi, don’t run on slippery surfaces, keep electronics away from the water.’ All of these are just stupid warnings that either you know because you have an IQ with a numerical value greater than the BBF girl’s bust size, or you were told by your parents “Don’t do stupid sh*t!”
But the truth is those warning are just getting out of control. We are inundated with warnings now. A 30 commercial about a medicine spends half the time telling you the side effects and warnings. (Maybe meds shouldn’t be advertised on TV and radio, though…another rant for another time.) There is an article that talks about how doctors are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of useless alerts for medicines that they prescribe, that they ignore the worthy warnings embedded in them.
Warnings are less about actually stopping people from hurting themselves now and more about fending off potential lawsuits. Like the warning on a jar of peanuts, “Allergy Alert: Contains Peanuts” or on the lid of a cup of coffee “Warning: Hot Beverages are Hot!” It makes us less likely to heed warnings because they are so ubiquitous. Furthermore it makes us suspicious of the warnings as they are now less about protecting us and more about protecting The Company and thus capricious and not based in logic OR safety.
So when someone sees a sign asking for silence and respect or a sign saying stay out of the water it is looked at as a spoilsport rather than a serious warning.

J’Ames, I met a guy who worked for Saudi Aramco. They all had small “water purifiers” that they used to produce alcohol. He said the alcohol produced was really clean and didn’t give you a hangover. Another friend would take marbles over there that were used to aid the heating process.

Lots of moonshine at the Blade show this year. Everybody seemed to like it.

As I understand it the “you’ll go blind” part of distilling alcohol is essentially a non-issue with modern probe thermometers and a chart of boiling points. The methanol (aka blindness in liquid form) boils off first at 148.5F, then ethanol (aka proof God loves us and wants us to be happy) at 173F, then water at 212F. If you’re controlling your heat carefully, the boils will happen in sequence. You throw away the condensate until the boil temp is 173, then stop collecting when it starts to rise again.

Now that microbreweries have reached a new popularity the new trend is micro distilleries. They make small batches of what you find on your local grocery in a bottle with a fancy label and charge you double. Maybe the whiskey has a unique flavor but I really can’t believe vodka can be all that different from mass produced stuff.

Mr Science, our local parks have signs that play equipment may be hot. I go to WDW about once a year. I expect all fresh water to have gators. I don’t go in the ocean, but if I see pelicans, porpoises, etc feeding…I would never go in the water. See also HI. If there are monk seals and spear fishing on the beach…I stay in the shade. All of the people posting pics of their kids wading, swimming, etc from WDW are part of the problem. Signs don’t mean anything.

My grammo’s brothers had a still and would transport spirits to TX during Prohibition. Tio Pete lived in Chicago at the time. Returned to NM around the time that Capone was prosecuted. My dad always called him “Spanish Pete” and made jokes about him being a gangster in Chicago.

Let me make another analogy then, oso. We have a speed limit which few obey and is rarely enforced unless it is egregiously violated. Because of that, many other traffic laws get scoffed at. You are probably old enough to remember when drunken driving was looked at as just gauche rather than something criminal.

As I understand it the “you’ll go blind” part of distilling alcohol is essentially a non-issue with modern probe thermometers and a chart of boiling points. The methanol (aka blindness in liquid form) boils off first at 148.5F, then ethanol (aka proof God loves us and wants us to be happy) at 173F, then water at 212F. If you’re controlling your heat carefully, the boils will happen in sequence. You throw away the condensate until the boil temp is 173, then stop collecting when it starts to rise again.
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I’m pretty sure that’s not why you’re going to go blind, leon.

Mundo, I am so tired of laws that get passed for people to feel good with no intention of enforcement. Helmets for under 17s on bikes, scooters, etc. Dogs on leashes. Dogs with chips. The laws I break involve guns. I don’t believe in CCW. It’s a tax and a registry. Am I armed? Is there a gun in my car? Maybe. What I don’t do is challenge Coywolves, sharks, or gators. I’m wary of fire.

My problem with right on red is the failure to come to a complete stop before proceeding. I’m a passenger. I am the one in danger from the douchebags that don’t stop. Dan has relinquished my road rage co-pilot duties because I kept flipping off cops and calling them cunts.

Fav country store is in Etlan Va. The whole town was about 15 houses and two country stores that sat across from each other on the two lane “main drag”. One store would sell to anyone, the other was “particular” depending on your ethnic, religious, or hippie persuasion. This was the late 70s. And real Appalachian hillbillys still existed in those hollers.

Out here in the midwest there is a resurgence of the country store model in the form of “Dollar General”. For my little town of 900 it is way better (goods avail) than what the stop and rob carries and saves trips to “the big city”.

OK, so for the second time I butchered a top blade roast, yielding two big lovely flat iron steaks + another pound of stir fry meat for the freezer (and stock bits). I used Meathead’s ‘skinny steak’ technique on the steaks and they came out awesome. Beefy, tender, etc.

I think this cut might have displaced NY strip as my favorite of all time. Can’t believe it, but there’s no denying flavor. It’s just richer. And it was $3 less per pound than strip, although took a bit more labor to create the steaks than just trimming and cutting up a strip loin into fatties.

Yes, but that was a different part of the property near dry brush and woods. The phragmites are literally in my pond. I’ve lit the shore on fire multiple times trying to kill them. The only risk is a dead pine that I need to cut down anyhow. I think if I can scorch them on the shore and down to the water surface, then follow-up with some copper sulfate, I might get ’em dead.

Mare’s Musings

February 18, 2018

I’ll tell you, I had to turn the Olympics off last night. The gay overload with the gay flags and gayness and the gay skier and the all about gay was too much for me. How does being gay have ANYTHING to do with skiing unless you’re purposefully landing on a pole?